Tunnels 04, Closer

target -- seven o'clock to the city," he said. "He's behind our position --they're trying to cut us off from the exit."
    Drake watched where he'd seen the movement.
    Seconds ticked by.
    The Styx soldier broke cover from behind a tomb and Drake reacted instantly. The dart clipped the man on the upper arm. Yanking it out, the soldier staggered a few paces, then collapsed. As Drake reached the soldier, he kicked the man's rifle out of his reach.
    The soldier was wearing a long coat, and Drake immediately recognized the characteristic gray-green camouflage of the Division. He had large circular goggles over his eyes, and a Styx breathing mask covered the lower half of his face.
    "You're going sleepy-byes for a good long while," Drake whispered, and fired another dart into the man's leg at point-blank range. He didn't want to run the risk that the soldier hadn't received a full dose of tranquilizer. "One Division soldier down," Drake reported to Eddie over the throat mike, wondering why he hadn't heard back from him yet.
    Drake moved again, in a crouched run toward the wall where he and Eddie had entered the cavern, and where he hoped the rope would still be hanging. The plan depended on it being there. "Checking area between six and nine o'clock," he informed Eddie over the radio link. As he glanced at the locator, he was surprised to find that Eddie's marker was almost on top of his.
    "I've dealt with the others," Eddie said, as he appeared beside Drake, depositing three of the long Styx rifles on the ground at his feet. "But th--"
    A shot rang out, and they both ducked down.
    "That came from above," Eddie said, scanning the upper reaches of the cavern wall.
    But Eddie didn't spend any time on this as they both spied a figure no more than twenty meters away. He'd been lying in wait for them, close to where the rope was suspended. Clutching his shoulder, he went down on his knees, then fell face first.
    "He's a Limiter. Watch my back," Eddie said, as they both stole toward the prone body.
    Drake saw that Eddie had been right as he flipped the man over. His coat was quite unlike those worn by the Division -- this one had a camouflage pattern which consisted of blocks of different browns. There was blood over his chest from a wound to his shoulder. "He's been shot with a live round -- a tranquilizer dart hasn't done this. And I know this man -- he's a Limiter officer." Eddie threw a glance at Drake. "They don't usually accompany the Division patrols in here."
    "You did," Drake replied.
    But Eddie wasn't listening as he felt the man's neck to take his pulse. "He's still alive," he said, and immediately pointed his rifle at the opening where the rope was tethered. "But who's up there?"
    Before Eddie knew it, Drake was behind him with an arm around his neck.
    Eddie struggled, trying to swing an elbow into Drake's face.
    "No you don't!" Drake growled, applying more pressure to Eddie's windpipe so he could barely breathe and, at the same time, twisting his neck almost to the breaking point.
    "You can't get out of this. Drop your rifle or I'll kill you," Drake told him in no uncertain terms. "Then hold your hands up, where I can see them."
    Eddie knew he had no option, and complied.
    "Why? What is it?" he gasped.
    Drake whispered in his ear. "You slipped up twice. Your first mistake was that no one -- and I mean no one -- knew Fiona was pregnant. It was too early for her to tell anyone. So how come you knew all about it? I might have given you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you'd picked up on that from your Topsoil surveillance, but then you let something else slip. You referred to my friend at the university as 'Lukey'."
    Drake tightened his grip as Eddie tried to speak.
    "No, shut up and listen!" Drake fumed. "Only Fiona called him Lukey -- it was her pet name for him. And I was only aware of it because I happened to overhear them a couple of times in their room." Suffused with anger, Drake's voice was low and cold. "But you knew because she said it when she was under duress, didn't she? It was when she was being interrogated. That places you right there when she was being Darklit -- when she died from internal bleeding. And that nickname is the sort of tiny, trivial thing that I doubt even you Styx would bother to share with each other."
    Drake let out a breath and fell silent for a moment, as if he was trying to regain control of himself.
    "Funny, really -- although you were once my enemy, I thought I'd found someone I